


Redeem the Time

by m_madeleine



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Rómeó és Júlia (Színház)
Genre: Angst, Curses, Developing Relationship, Gen, M/M, Magic, Pre-Slash, Time Loop, Trick or Treat: Trick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:42:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27375142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_madeleine/pseuds/m_madeleine
Summary: Benvolio is stuck in a time loop. Escalus tries to help.
Relationships: Benvolio/Escalus (Romeo and Juliet)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Redeem the Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [privatesnarker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/privatesnarker/gifts).



> I hoped to get this finished before author reveals for a fun mystery moment, but I suppose it would have been pretty obvious anyway :D Hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Title from T.S. Eliot's _Ash-Wednesday_.

The princes of Verona had been said to do magic, once upon a time. It was little more than a legend these days. Escalus’s ancestors had done their best to eliminate the gossip, keep a reasonable reputation. Yet old wives’ tales were impossible to eradicate completely and that was how Benvolio must have heard about it. It had likely been this which made him come to the palace (well, break into it, really, at so early an hour it barely counted as morning and Escalus was only awake because of chronic insomnia) and breathlessly ask for help. 

It had been this, also, which made Escalus believe him, when he talked of living through the great tragedy about to strike — the description of which had already made Escalus reel — only to wake up again to the same few days, so grief-stricken at first he assumed he was having a particularly vivid nightmare; attempting to interfere, save his friends, and then ultimately, after some thinking, everyone. But Benvolio talked also of a darkness he’d faced, strange powers keeping Verona from reconciling even when its people wanted to, with hesitant glances at Escalus, like he was worried not to be believed especially at talk of dark magic. But if he believed one half of a strange story, Escalus considered, he might believe the second as well. Once upon a time, Escalus knew, the princes of Verona _had_ been said to do magic. And if Benvolio was a madman after all, trying to reconcile the fractions surely was a worthy endeavor all the same. 

There were the princely concerns of course, that left Escalus longing for peace — the feud scaring off merchants, neighbors refusing to ally with a divided city, Verona’s prosperity diminishing for so long now, but also — the princes never took sides. And as an adolescent, shut up inside studying, he’d look out the window to see Tybalt and Mercutio running through the gardens, an uneasy kind of childish friendship that quickly incinerated to leave bitter ash, but a friendship all the same. Escalus remembered the caraway biscuits from old Lord Montague’s funeral, the sugared almonds from Julia’s christening. He’d seen some born, some die, and though just a boy himself, already felt the weight of future responsibility on his shoulders. Of course, it was this same responsibility that separated them later; he never quite got to be their peer, and Mercutio chose to run wild with the Montagues more than with his boring kinsman with his nose in books. But he never forgot he was a son of Verona, just like them. And they were bright young things, when they weren’t killing each other. If Escalus had to resort to occult powers to save them, he would. 

The palace’s archives were vast and dusty, but Escalus had not misspent his youth in them for nothing, working out the pigpen cyphers of his ancestors’ diaries for fun on rainy afternoons. He knew where to look, or at least, he hoped so. Prince Antiocus had gone down in Verona’s history as a doddery oddball who'd spent more time with alchemy than politics, but he had also been a contemporary of the feud’s beginning. Escalus had pored over his writings with interest before, thinking him a madman for his tomes of tiresome overwrought poetry written in spindly Greek letters, even the longest word not longer than the width of a fingernail — at least until the afternoon he’d found a grille stuck between the unfilled, uncut pages of a latter volume, and realized that the poetry was just a mask for whatever was underneath. He’d given up once he realized the text below must have been encrypted with yet another method and never had time to get back to it. To the Montagues and Capulets, a rainy afternoon was no opportunity for a truce. 

Now, he had only a handful of sleepless nights, following stressful days filled with Benvolio’s careful execution of a plethora of plans. Escalus played a smaller part than he’d expected he would have to; Benvolio had lived through varying scenarios of the same events more than a dozen times of course, but beyond that, he had skill in subtly leading conversation, spreading goodwill, deescalating without the pitfall of enraging parties further at a failed attempt. One would think these were a prince’s skills also, but though Benvolio’s manners were rough, his words tumbling in a way that would have given his rhetoric tutors a coronary, Escalus found himself awed. And was quite happy to return to the archives; this at least was unambiguously his territory, even if the grille for the cypher looked more like an artful lacy bit of paper cutting that was almost impossible not to tear, and Antiocus had of course made sure that it didn’t align on-center. Escalus was certain to have found the correct volume at least, though still attempting to work out the alignment of the grille, when he heard a rustle and found Benvolio looking over his shoulder.

“Huh. Couldn’t read that even if I could read, if you know what I mean,” Benvolio said. Escalus sighed. 

“I doubt I will easily, either. Let us hope Antiocus was really jealously guarding secrets of old, not simply playing a trick on generations to come. I would not be surprised at the latter.”

Benvolio sat on a window sill and bit into an apple he’d picked in the gardens earlier (and he’d confessed at one point that he was used to climbing the palace wall, on account of the apple trees. Escalus had a hard time pretending he was affronted by this for even a second).

Escalus had not worked for long, still puzzling over the grille, when Benvolio jumped back down, took a couple of steps back to the desk, wringing his hands nervously.

“Feeling kinda useless over here, to be honest. Think a shoulder massage would help?” he asked, corners of his mouth jumping; joking mournfully, but joking, his smile lopsided, but still a smile. And Escalus remembered the Capulet ball just earlier that day, a tense affair of planning and sleuthing, giving Romeo and Julia opportunity to come together, letting the story run its course, but gentler, mellower this time — afterwards, leaning against the Capulet residence's wall outside, pale, tired, Benvolio told him, a hollow cheer in his voice, “You know, sometimes I still believe I’m dead. A ghost, stuck between the worlds, in the worst kind of purgatory. That would be something, right?” 

Not quite knowing why, maybe because he’d felt the darkness most in him then, maybe because the pallor given to him by the moonlight scared Escalus for a moment as well, but he reached out and took Benvolio’s hand. Felt harsh callouses, scars, and the unfamiliarity of touch had him on the verge of flinching away from it, but he held strong, something like stubborn loyalty burning in him. And now, again, Escalus felt a strange warmth towards the Montague hanger-on he’d barely noticed beyond his troublemaking, for the street kid making himself a home in his palace. Realizing he wouldn’t mind him there even when they weren’t trying to break a curse. Realizing also that perhaps “not minding” were wrong, weak words. But he could think about that later, once everything was over — because if they failed, Benvolio would have more tries. Escalus would not, at least not in any way that mattered to who he was right now, right here. 

Benvolio hadn’t told him if this was the first time he’d asked Escalus for help. Escalus assumed it was, but he didn’t want to know, not really, didn’t want to think about the other versions of himself Benvolio had met. Despite knowing otherwise, they seemed disconnected strangers to him. And he did not care to wish any future Escalus well, when he had not lived moments like _he_ had, and maybe never would, holding Benvolio’s hand in the moonlight and barely managing to persuade himself to let go. 

What Benvolio _had_ told him was that he tried not getting attached, tried to stay distant, inwardly, from each new version of his friends, from a Verona he’d only see dying, failing, breaking, for the umpteenth time in a row. But for all that Benvolio had said, Escalus couldn’t help but feel, hope, that perhaps Benvolio was breaking his own rules a little. Escalus was respected in Verona, if not to the point of the feud stopping at his command, the last impossible achievement of his princehood (though so many others had failed before him too). He had never felt _liked_. And he found that he quite enjoyed the feeling, now that he knew it. 

Escalus was still thinking about that, later, when they were hurrying over slick cobble stones, the mortar leaking blood as if the city was giving up all it had drunk over the centuries, stones groaning with large terrifying inhuman sounds — hoping they found the right texts, incantations, rituals to finally end the curse — and Benvolio grasped for his hand again, and Escalus made a vow to take mad old Antiocus’s portrait out of storage and hang it front and center in the great hall, if only they could finally save Verona this time.


End file.
